SHER - 'dikhtaa hai'

Got some responses from people telling about the SHER I posted.
Hence, I am posting an old SHER I wrote few years back when I was in college.
Hope people like it.

chehroN pe kai chehre, nahiN koi kisi se judaa
laakh dekhooN fir bhi,chehroN mein nahiN koi farak dikhta hai

paak insaaf ki ummeed kahan tak javaN rakhoon munsif
tere darbaar mein har jins ghalat dikhtaa hai

[paak insaaf=clear justice,munsif=judge,darbaar=court,jins=things,articles]

himmat-e-naakhuda ya patwaar ka bharosa karooN
jasaamat-e-beher jab door talak dikhtaa hai

[himmat-e-naakhuda=guts of oarsman,patwaar=oar,jasaamat-e-beher=largeness of ocean]

javooN to javoon kahaN,simt jo gum huaa hai
farsh to CHHat,CHHat deewar ki tarah dikhtaa hai

[simt=direction,gum=lost,farsh=floor,CHHat=roof]

fugaan sunta hoon uski per paar kaise paar jaaoon
jo dekhoon qaamat-e-deewar to falak dikhta hai

[fugaan = cry of pain,qaamat = height,stature,qaamat-e-deewar = wall's height,falak = sky]

A well used afternoon

I had a class till 1:30 this Wednesday. Had my lunch as usual and then was about to go off to my room when Pankaj asked me if I can provide him some help for the Flood relief camp in Bihar. And I thought to myself, what could be a better use of a lazy afternoon. I went into my room dropped my notebooks and went to join him. Earlier he had circulated a mail asking for volunteers who wanted to help for the same cause. Seems everyone was busy with their own commitments.

Prof. Haritha Saranga had took the initiative to collect old clothes for donation to the relief camp. We went to the destined location where all the collected clothes from the campus were accumulated. From the students' community we were three people from PGP1, me, Pankaj and Amit. We also had an EGMP IX A student along with a couple of his acquintances. While on the way we had a short introduction with Saranga mam wherein mam mentioned that most of the times people tend to donate quite a few things for the people afflicted by natural calamities, its the volunteers and their time which they fall off to do the rest of the work. We reached the place where we had Rajshekhar, the van driver who had to drive the clothes to the railway station, whom we immediately gave the moniker of Raju. Some clothes where already segregated as 'women', 'men', 'children' and 'others'. We segregated rest of the clothes accordingly. Then we started packing the clothes in cardboard cartons with the help of sellotapes. The whole process took almost 2 hours at the end of which I took leave and came back to my room. I was quite contented with whatever small bit I was able to contribute. May be it was not much which I did from my side, but it did leave me with feel good feeling. But mam's words did echoed in my mind after I went back. People don't want to expend their time doing these stuff. They might be willing however to help otherwise though. And why is that, may be they value the work which they can do in that time more valuable. Or may be they feel that such petty a job is not for them. In that case I remember Gandhi's word sayin "No work is a small work". And I would contribute more to it by saying, it is not the kind of work or kind of actions which always matter, sometimes it is the intention behind it which matters the most. I feel sorry to say that people lack this intention. Students would join Vikasna, the social service initiative from IIMB but they could not extract out time for this. So much of intent is clear when Vikasna provides them the 'bullet points' in a one pager. Well whatever the intent for joining Vikasna be, at least some good is occuring because of it. Don't we use the 'carrot theory' to get the job done so I suppose even this is valid.

After I came back Pankaj and Amit helped in the transporting of clothes till the railway station. And only after transfering the responsibility to the concerned person did they come back late in the evening. And this was done when both of them had a quiz the next day. Kudos to both the guys for their 'petty' contribution. I hope they keep the momentum going; it makes me feel that at least some things necessary are still alive in some hearts. The total clothes collected weighed 325 kgs in 14 cartons we packed and was sent to Sarvangin Vikas Sanstha, Kankarbag, Patna. I hope they reach the needy in right time, for there is nothing more than receiving the commodities for basic need for survival in the whole world. It could not possibly be more satsifying than reading a management book for 2 hours.

In case someone wishes to contribute financially the details are as follows:

Account Details:
Sarvangin Vikas Samiti
a/c No. 030701000973
RTGZ nubmer: ICIC0000307
ICICI Bank LImited Kankarbag Branch,
H-39, Doctors Colony, Patna 800 020

The internet portal for the NGO - http://svs.org.in/index.html

Movie Review - The Boondock Saints

The Boondock Saints

Are the ‘Saints’ doing the correct thing?? Well, no comments.

What is the story about? Well, disintegrate some murders which look like gang wars but actually are committed by fraternal twins who are just following ‘God’s verdict’, line it up with a super intelligent FBI detective who cracks the complex looking cases like a second grade puzzle, mix them with some good direction and put good action and comic sequences as icing, you have got ‘The Boondock Saints’. The director cum writer Troy Duffy is brilliant in his first attempt at movie making. The movie has the touch of Tarantino and Christopher Nolan when it comes to disordered storytelling and comes close to Tarantino and Guy Ritchie when mixing that ‘comedy during crime’ type of comic sequences in his movie. Consequence, you get the masterpiece Boondock Saints. Be it the action sequences or the comedy scenes or the dialogues, Duffy manages to excel in all in his first and only movie till date. And what does he do with fraternal brothers played by Sean Flanery and Norman Reedus, Willem Dafoe and David Rocco? He pulls out the best of the acting out of them. Dafoe is absolutely brilliant in his portrayal of a brilliant investigator with a rather unique sexuality. He fires in all cylinders in playing this role. Rocco looks natural in his role of an immature imbecilic criminal. And the brothers Flanery and Reedus pull out a great chemistry between them as fraternity brothers, without which the movie would have lost its charm.

Flanery and Reedus are forced to murder two ‘soldiers’ from the Russian mafia in self defense. The neighborhood and media depicts them as ‘Saints’ for murdering the bad guys and eventually they are set free without any charge. They get the verdict of God in their dreams to go ahead with the ‘cleaning’ job. Their friend Rocco joins in and they start planning and executing the jobs. The plot is thick with new ideas to keep you involved in the movie. The murder sequences at times are funny and the way in which detective Dafoe solves them are gratifying. The way the brothers pray before executing the ‘evil’ and then placing the coins on their eyelids make them antiheroes; audience like them. They show a good mix and match of young lads trying to make world a safer place. Many sequences in the movie are genuine and good dialogues make each of them even more pleasurable. The movie has been picturised in gloriously and each frame looks good on the screen. The movie might not have been a big success at the box office but has become a cult movie with its take on ‘cleaning’ the society to make it a better place for living. The ending of the movie could not have been better. A short documentary showing people’s response when asked what they think about the ‘Saints’ is just a brilliant way to end the movie. A highly recommended movie.
My Rating: 8.75/10.00

Movie Review - The French Connection

The French Connection:
The French Connection has been called so often times the movie which laid the rules for the upcoming cop flicks. And this is the biggest problem for this movie. This is the kind of movie on the guidelines of which other movies are made and hence the concept becomes so obsolete that when you watch the original stuff there is actually no originality left. However, it has got the drawback of not being able to be movie which keeps you itact with you seat. Even 'Godfather' is the movie one of its kind, based on which innumerous mafia movies were made later on, but Godfather still keeps its originality intact; It has got the charm which makes you want to see it again and again forgetting about all the mafia movies you might have seen within the years. This lacks in The French Connection. After having seen so many cop flick with different chase sequences what this movie offers is mere flow of various events. Action is present in the form of chase sequences which an average audience sees a dozen of times a year. That freshness of 'new concept' is gone and when it comes to story there is nothing much to speak about. The director has not made any effort to make the movie look different; as i said its just the flow of some seequences which comprise the movie. This is because of these reasons that this movie is not for the audience of today. It fails to charm you and you might get bored in just the beginning half an hour of the movie. There are no gripping dialogues, no face to face combats. Its all about the chase. Not recommended if you can't sit through a movie just for the name of it being a classic movie; there is not much of an entertainment left in it.

My Rating: 7.00/10.00

Movie Review - Following

Following

Following is the first movie by Memento fame Chris Nolan and the movie gives you an idea where from does the direction style of Memento comes. In direction sense, Following could be said as a milder form of Memento. In the latter one always needed to remember what happened in the previous scene and how it started, this movie also has been cut into pieces but the jig saw puzzle leaves you with some link to correlate to other scenes. These links are often the artifacts used in the movie or the state of the actors which speak about the sequence of the movie. The pieces of movies are not exactly in a chronological order but the links help in getting the flow of the story. As in Nolan’s own words “In a compelling story of this genre we are continually being asked to rethink our assessment of the relationship between the various characters, and I decided to structure my story in such a way as to emphasize the audience's incomplete understanding of each new scene as it is first presented”. And as I mentioned the audience is left with some clue (physical artifacts or the state of actors) which help them link the whole story in their minds with the scenes shown without any order. Director takes out good work from all the actors. Jeremy Theobald and Alex Haw play their roles aptly and so does Lucy Russell. The way Lucy Russell has been dressed pushes you back in time and you don’t really understand which year the movie is from.
Following is a story of an obsessed writer who follows strangers in the street to get the subject for his novels. He gets addicted and start following the same people. He is manipulated by a criminal and used for his own means while the writer gets trapped in criminal charges which he did not commit. If you have already seen Memento you might wonder it some sort of liberation occurs to the writer but the story ends with plain truth of he getting acquitted for the crime. The background score is good and different. It keeps the interest intact with a little of annoyance in the mind. Annoyance is not as big as leaving the theatre but it does catch your attention.
The movie begins with the writer rather rhetorically saying “Following is my explanation”. The criminal mind ‘Cobb’ has been portrayed as a thief who doesn’t really steal for the gains by the artifacts, rather he enjoys breaking into the houses and assessing what the house and the artifacts in it tell about its owner. His assessment is rather enchanting and Alex Law does it so naturally that it truly shows how good an actor he is. The assessment about “Everybody has a box” and his philosophy of “You take it away…to show them what they had” all seems so correct and doesn’t questions ones moral about stealing. Nolan weaves a crisp story with well defined characters and beautifies it with his bona fide fashion of film making. Considering the budget of the movie the outputs which has come out is just brilliant. It indeed is a great start up for a good director.

My Rating: 8.25/10.00

On Entrepreneurship - Mr. Naren Dubey

Till now I have attended quite a few talks by some very renowned and eminent speakers of leading firms in India. Most of the times it was an opportunity offered because of me having a privilege of being in IIMB. Some of them had set up these speakers had setup their own firms. Unfortunately most of them spoke about the current market scenario in their sector, problems faced by them etc. No one gave a generic view on how an aspiring entrepreneur should go about with his dream of setting up a firm by his/her own. At least some discussion on the problems faced by such start ups in a more generic format would have been of some use to the student community (at least that is what I feel).
It came to me as a pleasant surprise when in the ‘Managing Organizations’ class today the professor had invited one of the co founders of a firm to talk about his entrepreneurship experience. Fortunately this time the speaker spoke about some of the generic problems a start up firm faces in its early years. A brief profile of the speaker would constitute that Mr. Naren Dubey is a chemical engineering pass out from BITS Pilani to pursue his MBA in Wharton Business School and a Ph.D. from University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He has worked into domains like Tissue Engineering, image processing of biopolymers. He has also been the VP for Moserbaer and prior to his entrepreneurship debut was the Director of Applied Material India. He along with his friends from Wharton founded Scancafe, a firm which provides the scanning and restoring facility for the old hardback photographs into digital form, making it possible to share the photographs among family and friends.

Here are some of the points he spoke of and which I can scribble in my notebook.
He said setting a firm of your own is like “Building the perfect Beast, It is demanding and rewarding”. What I could make out of it is a firm of your own needs lots of attention for it is your passion and also the bread and butter for you. The firm is referred to as a beast because of its size, the people involved in the activities to make the firm running efficiently. For me, a firm is a mixture of Frankenstein’s monster and Alladin’s genie. It needs loads of resources to feed the monster but it also rewards you back like a fairy tale genie does.

He spoke about the importance of people in a start up. In fact he said that a start up is all about people and how to work harmonically with them. He said that being one of the cofounders of a start up one needs to have an open mind. He said that a person who has the ability to pull up a firm from $0 to $4 million might not necessarily be the right person to make it a $40 million company from a $4 million one. And at times even if she is a very dear buddy of yours you might have to do away with her for the firm’s good. The same is applicable to each and every cofounder. While speaking about differences in decision making he said that one should honor that a person with same IQ level as yours and similar passion like you have for your firm can not make a blunder and hence you should believe her. He said that in a startup it is of extreme importance that people who take decisions believe in each other.

About the vision one should have while starting a firm he said:
· “Always have a vision at any point of time”
· “Everyone should believe in the vision”
· “Vision is not static”
The first point to me means that without a vision it is very difficult to judge which way to go since you don’t even know where you want to go. Until there is a specific vision as to what the company wants to achieve decisions like how to achieve it, at what pace should it be achieved and using what processes/skills/systems makes no sense. The seconds point again is very important. If the vision is not clear it might again lead you to a trap of uncertainties and confusion. The third point states that for a big well established company it is important to have a well defined vision which sticks to the company but for a small start up a vision might keep changing as the growth occurs. And it is of utmost importance that a start up keeps pace with the changes otherwise it might perish.

Regarding the growth of a firm he said that people pursue their dream to transform into reality but nobody want to live that dream 24X7. One cannot always think and work about the firm she has created. The basic idea is to set up such an efficient firm that you can sip coffee in the morning without worrying if everything is working fine. He said the mantra is to “Learn to make yourself obsolete” One needs to realize that however passionate someone might be about anything, she won’t like it doing all the time. At some point or the other she needs to handle over some responsibilities to the other person. Skepticism still prevails even if the person is highly experienced and qualified in managing a firm. And hence the best way is to learn to steadily be obsolete or indifferent towards the functioning of the firm.

A quote from Shiv Khera’s book ‘You can win’ says “Winners don’t do different things, they do things differently”. Naren quoted it a little differently by saying you can achieve differentiation of your products by nurturing the ability to do different things differently. And this is very true for a multiunit multi product providing companies. Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) provides Close Up tooth paste, Axe deodorant and Lux soap at the same time to different customers. They do great by differentiating their products from dozens of other tooth pastes or deodorants or soaps present in the market to pick from.

While speaking about venturing into the market he said that you should always know what value proposition you are offering and to which market. What is true in US market might not be true for an Indian market. He also spoke about the barriers to entry and said that you should always ask the questions “Why aren’t others doing it?” The answers to this question will give you insight on what strategy to follow, what are the risks involved, which market segment to focus and a whole lot of other important things.

I enjoyed the small talk during which he provided us with loads of enriching and enlightening knowledge. I hope some of which I mentioned above be enjoyable, if not useful to the readers.

Photo Courtesy: http://www.scancafe.com/aboutus.php

The CP terminology

Every generation have a lingo which differs from the the previous one and would differ from the generations to come. A little thought more given, every institute/colleges etc will have lingos different from each other. As per my belief lingos appear in the day to day spoken conversations
a) as a tool to look hip
b) distinguish one's alma mater from others to show superiority in some sense
There could be other reasons as well, but the point being they do exist and will keep on existing.

Now our insitute too has a whole range of words which are used here. Not concentrating on all of those I would focus more on the branch and subsidiaries of just one term - "CP".
Without being verbose I hereby give you my analysis of CP. :)

CP: Class participation - The act of putting across one point to (a) genuinely agree/disagree with whatever teachers have said, or (b) get into the eyes of the teacher in anticipation of a couple of extra marks. Youth has distorted its verb form to a noun form referring to a person who does this act.
DCP: Desperate CP - A person with a worm of 'pick me-pick me' syndrome while contributing to the topic discussed in the class. These people need to say something else some underworld Don somewhere would shoot some beloved of theirs.
e.g. - A person keeping his/her hands up until the teacher notices and still keeps the hands in the air until given a chance to speak.
ACP: Arbit CP - A relatively milder form of 'pick me-pick me' syndrome wherein the person while trying to contirubte something to the topic might deviate from the topic. At times they need to show off their knowledge in other topics and hence the digression.
e.g. - A person co-relating the social contracts and harmony in which corals of East coastal Australia live while talking about the communication between the employees in an organization.
SCP: Solo CP - A person who single handedly keeps the baton of CP and runs alone in the 4X100 race. Often such incidence happen when the lecturer is so sleep inducing that most of the class is sleeping and since someone has to say something our SCP comes to the rescue.

As of now I have been able to identify only these many forms of CPs. I hope I would be identify more through my stay at my institute. :)

The 3 E’s by Manish Sabharwal: Entertaining, enlightening evening

Yesterday we had talk by Mr. Manish Sabharwal arranged and organized by Prof. Rajeev Gowda under a course we are undergoing this term. A brief introduction of Mr. Sabharwal would include his graduate degree from Shri Ram College of Commerce, an MBA from Wharton School of Business, venturing into entrepreneurship with setting of India Life (which was sold to Hewitt to be christened into India Life Hewitt Ltd.) and eventually setting up TeamLease, a major staffing company which provides temporary and permanent manpower solutions to their clients. He is also plays the advisor for almost half a dozen states in India.

Some of my friends were already talking about him because of his presentation during EXIMIUS – The entrepreneurship summit, held earlier this week. I missed on his talk because the first talk I attended was so boring that I had to leave it midway and then could not resist the temptation of taking a small nap when I was back in my room. Well, that small nap spanned over a couple of hours and I missed all the subsequent talks of the summit. My friends who did manage to pass the storm of boredom where rewarded with a talk by Mr. Sabharwal, at least that is what I could infer from the way they told me about the speaker. I got a second opportunity offered by Prof. Gowda and there was no way I could have missed it.
He spoke about topics like current scenario in labor market arena, the policies prevailing, what his company TimeLease aims to deliver and eventually about what entrepreneurship is all about. Starting with the 5 ways with which the labor market has transformed, he went ahead talking about the failure in the 3 E’s, namely: Education, Employability and Employment. He then talked a whole stretch about the causes and effects of these three E’s in the Indian labor market. My aim for this post is not to dump the lump of gyaan he gave about the labor market, but to magnify the incidences of his life he shared with us, the fundoo quotes he used during the presentation and what my small brain could make out of them(in some of the cases). Now, I do not recall of them but a few which I could hold on to is what follows.

Here we go.

• On changing relationship between employer and employees – “It has changed from Mai-Baap to Taxi-cab relationship. It is crisp and animated but often includes no emotions”
  
• On initiating a change (applicable to entrepreneurship as well) – “Good is not the enemy of Great”. Which later was rephrased by Prof. Gowda as “Good is not the enemy of Perfect”. In other words, don’t be a procrastinating perfectionist rather be the change you want to be, which also means to choose wisely between the ‘Intelligent Design’ and ‘Evolution’.
  
• On facing competition in entrepreneurship – “It is like a beauty pageant. You don’t have to be Cleopatra, you just have to be less ugly that you competitors”
  
• On perception of corporate world about the policies – “Policies for the corporate world is a thorn in the flesh and not a dagger in the heart”.
  
• On entrepreneurship – “Entrepreneurship is the art of being lucky”
  
• On luck and on ‘Ovarian Lottery’ – “Luck is not to be lived on but to be built on’
  
• On MNC’s attitude to think them as being able to compete with any other company because of the immense capital surplus they have –“In the French revolution it was said that God is not in the side of the biggest army but in the side of the army with best shots”.
  
• On dealing with his international competitors – “I can’t outspend them but I sure can outsmart or outrun them. In Olympics horse riding is the only sport where a woman can compete with a man and this is because horse riding is considered as an all technique sport. Same is applicable to business”
  
• On how carefully regulatory arbitrage can be leveraged he requoted Paracelsus – “The dose makes the poison”
  
• On government bureaucrats –“They are too small for big things and too big for small things”
  
• On government spending treasure of money on policies –“Government is deploying more cooks in the kitchen rather than trying a different recipe”
  
• There was this short story he told, I can’t recollect however the context on which it came into the picture- “A man died with his two wives behind. One of them was crying and screaming ‘mere pati ko vapis le aao(Bring my husband back) while the other one was calm and sipping coffee. Someone asked her how are you so compose then she replies back ‘Arre uska aayega to mera bhi aa jaayega’ (if her husband comes so will mine)”
  
• On life –“Life is painting of a picture and not solving of a sum. Don’t let it be an extension of a straight line”
  
• On change –“You can’t boil the ocean”
  
• On customers –“If people don’t want to pay for what they want then they don’t really want it”
  
• On IIMB –“Better place to be at than to be from”
  

As enchanting a speaker he is, I enjoyed the evening spent in the auditorium listening to this man. Hope you had fun as well while going through the post.

Photo Courtesy: http://www.mbauniverse.com/innerPage.php?id=oi&pageId=44

Movie Review - Rescue Dawn

Rescue Dawn

The movie is an adaptation of a real life story of capturing and then escaping of german born American Dieter Dengler as a POW in the villages barricaded by dense forest of Vietnam after his aircraft is hit. Audience might expect gunshot rounds, rivers of blood, mutilated dead bodies etc (remember Rambo IV) but these elements of violence have been kept aside in the movie. The movie does show torture and piteous condition of the prisoners but has avoided blood bath. The difficulties faced by these POWs have been shown with good liveliness though. Prisoners live in bamboo prisons, are handcuffed to each other in the nights, have little to eat and got nothing to do the whole day also portrays the notion of mental torture they are going through. Especially when the audience comes to know that some of them have been in that situation from past 2 years. Some of them do hope that they will be set free some day or the other. Dieter however believes that it is they who should try getting free rather than things to happen by their own. He befriends Duane, who by Dieter’s ability to do few things which the others never tried, starts believing in him. Dieter then conceives a plan and they finally run away from the prison. It is but just the beginning for them. Wandering around the jungles trying to find their way to Thailand without food or shelter or rest is what they face. Eventually it is just Dieter who is able to make the escape successfully.
Director Werner Herzog has deliberately avoided special effects and stuck to basics. He has concentrated more on the difficulties and hardships faced by prisoners rather than showing bullets fired from firearms mutilating living human body to dead. He has also given a keen eye on the mental trauma faced by these prisoners. The scene where Dieter offers the shoe to Duane when he says that he is feeling cold, without realizing that he has been killed, shows the mental weariness leading to inability to differentiate between dream and reality. Breaking down of Duane asking Dieter to leave him and go in a scene earlier shows what physical overdrive can do to a person. Making their ways through 7 feet high bushes in the jungle is one such hardship. All these without food make the situation from bad to worse. The shooting locales are fantastic (I should mention that I love greenery). The mountains, waterfalls reminded me that some greenery is still left in the planet.
The one thing which I hated about the movie is that the director has made everybody except the Vietnamese who have captured them talk in whispers. I mean, when they are inside the prison it is understandable to whisper their escape plans to each other, but Dieter and Duane keep on whispering even when they have escaped in the jungle. There might be a logic that people might be following them and that voices travel long in the jungle but whatever the director has in his mind, the execution of it did annoy me. Moreover the pace of the movie also is a little slow which might kill the interest of some audiences.
Post ‘The Machinist’, I always keep on expecting more from Christian Bale. This was one movie which shows how much he is dedicated towards whatever work he does. I don’t understand how but he seems to have developed the ability to lose and gain weight at his will (Watch ‘The Machinist’ if you really wish to learn what I mean). The same prowess is visible here as well. He has lost quite a bit of weight for the role as the movie climaxes. Chewing on live worms and snake show Bale’s dedication to whatever he does (assuming that the worms and snake were real). I would really like this actor to get more good projects to show is abilities more to the audience.
The opening as well the ending scenes are great. When the movie opens in slow motion with scene of aircrafts bombing villages in Vietnam, it strikes upright the irony of visually beautiful but destructive bombings. The ending scene is when Dieter is cheered and when asked to give some words of advice, says: “Empty that which is full. Fill that which is empty. If it itches, scratch it." These were the words of a POW who, with great hardships, has managed to pull himself out of the misery. It shows no patriotism, no bravery, no boastfulness but the reality.
My Rating: 8.00/10.00

Movie Review - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Man, do I love the way the movie opens?
Absolutely!!!
The movie frame filtered with the single twilight color and Paul Newman walking into the bank. I immediately assumed that it is going to be a great movie experience. I loved Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the movie, the chemistry between them is awesome, especially when the secrets of either of them are revealed to the other. However the two fail to parallel what was there between Eastwood, Van Cleef and Eli Wallach in ‘The good, the bad and the ugly’. As I mentioned, the movie starts brilliantly but some way between the story line makes you think about the relentlessly extending chase sequence by the police. To be said, the movie is about their flight and finally their fall but it might get into your nerves. Katharine Ross looks beautiful in the movie but does not have much to do as the movie revolves totally around the male protagonists. Both of them are great but for me the best ever performance in any western genre movie would be Eli Wallach as Tuco; no words to describe his brilliance; wickedness is so visible in his face that I doubt if anyone other than him could have portrayed ‘the ugly’ better than he did.
Director George Roy Hill has done a fairly good job for a good script. It is the events in the movie and the actors who make the movie enjoyable. For instance the scene where they learn Spanish to rob the bank made me smile. In fact there are many instances which will make you laugh. Specifically the incidences with the Woodcock did give me a good loud laugh. Overall I should say that it is indeed an enjoyable movie given that you don’t get sick of somewhat slow pace of the movie. If you are used to western movies like ‘The magnificent seven’, ‘For a few dollars more’, ‘A fistful of dollars’ etc it is recommended that you watch this movie. It has the elements of western genre movies with some tinge of comic.
My Rating: 8.50/10.00

Movie Review - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

The only reason I wanted to see the movie was because of Humphrey Bogart and it was a good experience watching him perform middle aged paranoid Fred Dobbs. The movie is a film adaptation of B. Traven’s novel of the same name in which a middle aged down-and-outer with a younger man(played by Tim Holts) joins hands with a fast talking experienced old-timer(played by Walter Huston) to try their lucks in finding gold in the mountains of Sierra Madre. The story will seem an obsolete affair to someone of this era but it’s not the theme of the story which captures one’s attention but the sequences in the story and the stellar performances by Walter Huston and Humphrey Bogart. Director John Huston has done a good job in bringing out one of the best performances by Bogart and his father Walter Huston. In my opinion Walter Huston has outshone Bogart in many a places. Bogart gets a chance in the last half an hour of the movie and he does create an impact in that duration and a fundamental one too. The movie is not actually about the gold, it is about one’s character and how it goes on depleting with greed which has been shown brilliantly by Bogard’s character Dobb. It is breath taking to see Bogart perform once the paranoia goes into his head about owning all the gold; it is just his just his brilliance which captures the whole screen. His portrayal of a selfish, frightened, greedy paranoid colors the screen. His revered monologue, the ‘conscious’ scene, after he commits murder is an absolute masterpiece where he says "Conscience. What a thing! If you believe you got a conscience, it'll pester you to death. But if you don't believe you got one, what could it do to ya?" Shaffer makes a justice by giving him a tragic end nearing the climax of the movie. Walter Huston on the other end has been very efficiently taking care of the acting department. His performance is uniformly brilliant and his screen presence automatically makes you more attentive towards the movie. That’s the kind of effect he creates. The movie is very much about the quote he speaks – “I know what gold can do to men’s souls”.

For the time being I am waiting for my chance to see Bogard’s ‘The Maltese Falcon’ and ‘The African Queen’ and a revision of ‘Casablanca’.
My Rating: 8.75/10.00

Movie Review - Sleuth

SLEUTH

This was my first opportunity to watch a movie which has been adapted from a play. To say, I don’t have much of an experience with theatres; had been very lazy to go and savor the creativity they offer but would really want to be regulars at some nearby theatre some point of time. This leaves me with quite a limited knowledge to comment on which nuances of histrionics were caught in the movie and which went unattended. When it comes to movie however, it was a great experience.
The movie starts a little low and the first few minutes give an idea as if it is yet another slow boring movie. At least that is what I was feeling at the beginning. Once it starts with the pace it takes you for a joy ride. Laurence Olivier is a mystery books rich old writer whose wife is in love with a young salon owner played by Michael Caine. Olivier summons Caine to his home in order to decide on how should the whole process of letting go her wife should go. This however is a disguise; what Olivier actually wishes is to humiliate Caine for the act of stealing his wife. The story then seems to take a paradigm shift when both Olivier starts a battle of wits with Caine eventually manipulating him to do play a game between both of them. The movie then takes a couple of major twists which leaves audience glued to their seats and just like the storyline. To be honest, I possibly can’t talk anything more about the plot otherwise it will be no fun watching the movie.
The movie is an adaptation of the play ‘Sleuth’ by Anthony Shaffer. After running successfully this movie was conceived and as from my opinion full justice to the original play has been done by the movie/director. The whole movie revolves around just two characters and so they had to be absolutely fantastic thought the movie. Olivier, no doubt one of the finest thespians of the 20th century plays it brilliantly to be matched very well by the then young Caine. The chemistry between the two is absolutely stunning proving the mettle they have in theatre and also justifying the need of it in the movie. The number of games scattered around in the house might give an uncanny feeling thereby giving a mysterious environment to the whole plot. Shaffer has done a great job to write good dialogues delivered in even better way. Olivier’s “Sex is the game, marriage is just the punishment” not only made me smile but made me wonder how well he had said it to perfectly suit the character when it could have very well been said in so many different manners. This was my first encounter with Olivier and I would like to see more of his works. It is a disappointment that Caine did not get many opportunities to work in classics like this; it would have been great to see him perform in such mesmerizing roles.
If you are a fan of David Fincher’s ‘The Game’, ‘Se7ven’ etc, this movie is highly recommended because after seeing what Shaffer has been able to produce a few decades earlier these movies just look like the predecessors of a suave reclusive cult. This movie comes under my list of one of those movies which I would want to see time and again in my life.

My Rating: 9.25/10.00

SHER - Uski Khaatir

Don't remember when I started writing 'Sher's and when I stopped. I do remember that it all started with liking towards rhyming duplets :) [My nursery teacher would have left no stones unturned to make me learn nursery rhymes :)]. Slowly started writing rhyming duplets and eventually graduated to self learn more about Shayari thought internet and started composing some more Sher with fewer people being able to grasp what I meant by each of them.

Down the line, I somehow forgot that I used to have a passion. O the inricacies of 'Roti, Kapdaa aur Makaan' which made me join the rat race and made me forget what I sometime back used to enjoy so much. As tough it is to squeeze out time for anything today, I believe that attempts to revive one's soul should always be made.

Following is a Ghazal I wrote sometime back.

And this post is but yet again an attempt...

meeloN ka safar, us per urooj-e-kohasar
dauDen ya parvaaz bharein manzil ke khaatir

[urooz-e-kohasar=height of mountain]


un qatloN mein kahiN mujrim mai bhi tha
khanjar tez ki thi humne hi us qaatil ke khaatir


jidhar dariya chala,saath le chala apne qaedi ko
na ho saka humse kuch zamaanat-e-saahil ke khaatir

[qaedi=prisoner,zamaanat-e-saahil=bail for shore]


har lafz khat ke rote haiN khoon ke aansooN aur hum
padhte haiN 'sab khair hai' us jaahil ke khaatir

[jaahil=illiterate,ignorant]


har simt andheraa,aakhir-e-shab ka pataa nahin
duaa karte haiN hum hayaat-e-qandil ke khaatir

[simt=direction,aakhir-e-shab=end of night,hayaat-e-qandil=life of candle]

Movie Review - Star

Star

Would you expect anything out a 7 min movie, rather a promotional movie for a world renowned car brand? What would you expect if I tell you that the movie is directed by Guy Ritchie? Well Ritchie does a fantastic job to weave together a short story of an arrogant rock star with fabulous action stunts by ‘The Hire’ (the movie is also know as 'The Hire').
To keep it short and crisp just as the movie itself is, the performances by Clive Owen and Madonna are magnificent and the car chasing action sequences are comic and action filled at the same moment. Clive Owen has proved himself to be natural actor with some great performances in some of the movies he has worked on. This shortie just adds to his brilliance. Ritchie manages also manages to show his talent in such a short duration of the movie. The movie might actually leave you laughing for a few minutes.

The BMW owners are sure to enjoy it :)

Movie Review - Die Hard with a vengeance [Die Hard III]

Die Hard with a vengeance

I might have got a little late in watching this movie in the sense that I watched other parts of the Diehard series before I watched this one. But I should say that I am pleased that I did not miss altogether on this one. Being a Bruce Willis fan I was looking up to this movie but with a mindset of not liking this movie just because it is a Willis movie. I tried to keep the bias aside and saw this one trying to maintain a degree of neutrality. And well, Willis doesn’t fail me. I liked the movie for what it promises to deliver. Some sensible brute action with bits and patches of dark humor the superhero way (and not the way where the protagonist makes you laugh the slapstick way)
The movie starts with an explosion taking place and the culprit, the criminal asking for John McClane to be called upon. The criminal proposes to play a game with him wherein he would give clues to the location and diffusion of the dreaded liquid bombs he has placed in various parts of the city. As the story unfurls itself the audience and McClane come to know what exactly is behind all the havoc.
The direction is good and the screenplay awesome for a movie of its period. Samuel Jackson as always is great in his role (can’t forget what he did in Pulp Fiction, would always admire him for that). The chemistry between the two not only keeps audience glued to their seats but also make them laugh at times.
Some of the action sequences are good but if you haven’t seen this movie yet and have already watched quite a few recent action movies [read, The matrix and blah and blah and blah which have got great special effects in the name of action sequences] you might not so well appreciate it. In fact some of the sequences have been tried and tested for audiences’ taste so many a times that they have gone obsolete and one might find them clichéd. But isn’t that the irony of action movies, the more you watch them less are the chance so you finding something new in a new action flick. Well for me it worked because I always keep in mind the time frame which movie represents, either if the way in which it depicts the era where the story is from or the releasing year of the movie.
All in all, a good action movie and for the audience who like action there is no way this movie is going to fail them. So, if you have got a taste for good action movies, go ahead watch it without any fail.
Guess this is how much can be written about an action movie :)

My Rating: 8.5/10.0

Movie Review - Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi

Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi:

The title of the movie, ‘Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi’, is an excerpt taken from the ghazal of the same title by Mirza Asadullah Khan, popularly known by his pseudonym as ‘Ghalib’. The most famous duplet (‘Sher’ as we know them popularly as) of the ghazal, which also is the opening duplet of the ghazal, is as follows:
“Hazaaron khwahishein aisi ki har khwahish pe dam niklebahut nikle mere armaan, lekin phir bhi kam nikle”
A crude translation of the above duplet would be – “...thousands of desires, each worth dying for...many of them I have realized...yet I yearn for more...”, and this meaning of the duplet or ‘sher’ parallels with the flow of events in the movie.
The movie begins with Pandit Nehru’s speech on the day of Indian Independence, showing him in a black and white movie snippet speaking the famous words ‘…on the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to light and freedom…’. The director then displays the message that after his death in the 60’s the baton was passed to his daughter, Indira Gandhi, and that the movie is about his imaginary siblings’ lives in those times, when India was pulled in a thousand directions.
The first half an hour of the movie gives a sneak peek into the college life of 70’s, and with such a frivolous ease but yet so believable and amiable way that one might fall in love with the portrayal of the college life then. The college life picture constitutes the rock n roll culture, the enthusiasm over the Naxalite movements, discussion of various prominent ideologies, passion to touch and live that affluent high class luxurious life and many other ideas with vibrant lustrous emotive colors. The posters of Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Jimi Hendrix, Robert Plant gives an idea as to what a Delhi university student in that era must have in his mind. Students with bongs in their palms also give a hint of the Hippy culture having an impact on the students’ lives. The rest of the movie spans over the shows us the plight of not only those people who were directly involved in the movement but also of those who did not perform any act of violence.
The movie doesn’t answer the questions of ‘Why Naxalism’ or ‘Why violence as a method’, it merely shows the plight of the people trapped in this movement. It however does leave many a questions to ponder upon by the end of the movie.

It is the love story embedded in the movie which unravels it's intricacies along with the flow of the movie which says about the title. The protagonists of the movie have desires to mark their presence, be it the political arena or social arena, but they also have personal desires, their love interests. All the protagonists being ready to shed their lives for the fulfilment of their desires which are so different from each others.
Overall I would say I had a great movie experience with this movie. The movie shows us where we are coming from. Be it the issue of Naxalism, bureaucracy and corruption in government hierarchy, atrocious-autonomous police system, and political unrest, whatever we have today is just a continuation of the history we have had. The movie has covered one and all, giving us a question to ponder “Are we ever going to change?”

My Rating: 8.5/10.0

Movie Review - The man fron Earth

The man from Earth:
The title of the movie, and for that matter the sites on the internet, might suggest that the movie is another sci fi tale embedded with awe striking special effect and jaw dropping action sequences. The movie, however, is an insight into various into various aspects of human existence. For the audience who has watched the movie without any prior prejudices and who loves a good script/story, this movie is just too excellently written to be forgotten. It begins with a man asking a question ‘what if a man from Upper Paleolithic survived until the present day’, and the story begins to unfurl as the characters come to join in, rather getting involved in the story of that 14,000 year old man. The story is fabulously written by Jerome Bixby, who conceived the idea of the story in 1960’s but the story eventually came to its shape in his death bed 40 years later. Kudos to the director, Richard Schnekman, to achieve the task of keeping all the elements of the script intact and stark, the way they were supposed to be skipping the temptation for any visual effects which could have easily been introduced in the garb of flashbacks. And he does it keeping the audience absorbed in the story. ‘Blockbuster audience’ might get bored but for the audience who enjoy some serious intellectual work, it’s a masterpiece.
The movie is about a professor resigning his post and leaving his house suddenly without telling his friends and colleagues know of it. His colleagues however plan a small farewell get together for him and assemble just as he is moving his luggage. On questioned why he is leaving all of a sudden, he starts with the story of a 14,000 year old person who has survived from Paleolithic age to the present era. As the story continues, his colleagues comprising of anthropologist, biologist, Christian literalist, historian and psychiatrist keep on questioning him to know more and more about the man. The story turns out to be of the professor and the debate blankets all these fields and talk about the possibility of such a thing happening. Their conversations include historical events, theology and existence of God, physical possibility of regeneration of cells so that a man can stay vernal forever, conditions of immortality and many other topics. For an audience who likes the story and the ‘action’ which in can bring intellectually and not necessarily physically, this is going to be great movie. This is a movie where the script writer rules and the role of a director is just to ensure that he doesn’t ruin the intention with which the story has been written. Both the tasks are done with great excellence. For the audience who loved ‘Before sunrise’, ’Before sunset’, ‘Adaptation’ etc (read movies with good script) this movie is going to be a joyride.

My Rating: 9.25/10.00

A casual anagoge

Sometimes, just a casual conversation can give you so much which can influence you whole life. Values inculcated by Karamchand made his son walk in the direction no one dared to. We today know him as 'Mahatma'.

Following are the excerpts from a casual chat I had with a buddy of mine today on an instant messager.

Me: Getting screwed real bad man :((
XYZ: Thats only because you resist
Me: Haha...Depends on how you look at it...
XYZ: Enjoy it and you will see that you are actually enjoying :D
Me: some believe in going with the flow..some believe that the very meaning of their lives is to keep moving however strong the juggernaut is
XYZ: so which one are you ?
Me: I haven't decided yet :)
XYZ: :P
Me:I want to be the one who keeps moving..but the juggernaut is pushing me back....not only the external juggernaut , but the one inside me does the same...
and I strongly believe if I conquer myself...I will be someone I really want to be
XYZ:because it’s the nature .....the ONYL problem is that we are not with the nature...flow with the universe and then there is no misery :P
Me: that is the whole point dude...what do you consider to be as nature and what you consider to be the opposing force....if you consider opposing force to be the nature you might enjoy flowing with the flow....it all depends on one's perception
XYZ: opposite force = miss-understanding / ego / stupidity
and yeah perception is there
Me: correct.... perception is what matters..that is what defines you...not the bones and flesh in you
XYZ: so who is this speaking ?
Me: I suppose none of the two characteristics we are talking about...
instead...
it's the artist in me..who comes out at time to show his literary abilities :P :p
XYZ: artist :O omg :P
Me: haha :D
anyways...was good to talk..even for a while...will keep pinging you
XYZ: this is real you I guess .... when you are alone you suffer from yourself , otherwise most of the time you are busy with some work n all
Me: very well stated...right you are...it’s just the situations which make you act differently...and there are some which bring the real 'you' in you...
anyways...will split now...


Keeps me thinking...

A futile beginning or...

I spent 20 minutes figuring out about the content of my first blog. And why? Because I wanted to have something 'good' as my first step. Easier it is for us to conceptualize a thing and how harder it is for the implementation. So, I will be considerate to myself. Rather than torturing myself to write a 'good' starting blog(as if I dont already have enough torturing events happening in this term), I would try to stick to one statement Mr. Bagchi said while he was here in the IIMB campus to address us, the fresh prospective leaders of the country. He said 'Your are your best friend and you are your worst enemy'. And now I understand it better when I wasted 20 minutes of my precious time just trying to figure out the content of my first 'killer' blog. Just for a change, let me just concentrate on the implementation, ideas will bud, keep on watering the plant.

And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.